Then you have to define Purpose to know what it is that man serves. In lieu of that you haven't got a case...unless "Purpose" is defined and made active symbolically as a prime projection of consciousness which is the only way it can be done!

I agree, this is an essential question. From the article

In this understanding, the earth is inextricably enmeshed in a network of purposes, a ladder or hierarchy of intentions. To the ancient mind, this is the very meaning of the concept of organization and order. A cosmos--and, of course, the cosmos--is an organism, not in the sense of an unusually complicated industrial machine, but in the sense of a hierarchy of purposeful energies………………………

…………….n the Hermetic writings the hierarchical structure of the cosmos resembles that of an organism: cell in the service of tissue; tissue in the service of organ; organ in the service of the whole (governed by a supreme consciousness or intelligence). At each level of being there are "gods" or "angels" or, to use less uncomfortable language, "purposeful energies." From this point of view, the ancient spatial descriptions of the cosmos are meant to be understood symbolically.

Likewise, the word "sphere," used in describing the forces and purposes at different levels, is never meant merely to be taken literally. The very idea of the circularity of movement in "the heavens" can be understood to mean not only the encompassing nature of these progressively higher influences, but their eternal nature. The circle is, among many things, a symbol of that which "eternally recurs," that which is not subject to time and change as we know them.

Obviously, there is a great difference between contemplating a universe which exceeds me in size alone or in intricacy alone, and one which exceeds me in depth of purpose and intelligence. A universe of merely unimaginable size excludes man and crushes him. But a universe that is a manifestation of great consciousness and order places man, and therefore calls to him.

It is normal to consider how the universe serves Man. But it makes far more sense to consider how Man serves the hierarchy of conscious intention and purposeful energies.

The purpose of organic life on earth serves the purpose of transforming substances by bodily process. Who can deny that this is what we objectively do. Our bodily processes transform substances and the energies released serve the earth and the universal ladder of purposeful energies.

Jacob Needleman describes consciousness:

We now see why a conscious universe makes no sense to modern science. In the ancient teachings, higher mind or consciousness is never identified with thought associations, no matter how ingenious they may be. If these teachings speak of levels of reality higher than human thought, they are referring, among other things, to an order of intelligence that is inclusive of thought. Consciousness is another word for this power of active relationship or inclusion. Can the power to include ever be understood through a process of internal division and exclusion? Fascinated by the activity of thinking, and drawn to it to the extent of psychological lopsidedness, is it any wonder that we modern scientific men almost never directly experience in ourselves that quality of force which used to be called the Active Intellect, and which in the medieval cosmic scheme was symbolized by a great circle that included the entire created universe?

Dualistic thought associations are only a part of human consciousness unable to connect levels of reality. Dualistic reason excludes while human consciousness and the triune mind includes.

Animal Man serves the same purpose as all organic life on earth. It transforms substances in conjunction with the great hierarchy of being and the involutionary and evolutionary flow of energies which sustain the cyclical universe. Man on earth also has the potential to serve a higher conscious purpose which receives higher energy from above and gives to below serving the purpose of Man’s potential conscious evolution. In this way conscious Man feeds the earth with a necessary quality of energy and life on it including animal Man. This energy is also a necessary quality for the growth of the inner man.

You may appreciate this review of A Sense of the Cosmos from which the conscious universe was taken. A reader received great shock from a magazine cover when he realized it was referring to galaxies as opposed to stars. For a moment he experienced his nothingness which is part of awakening.

We experience ourselves walking on the ground and react with dualistic reason but there is a part of our mind that can open to the idea that we are a tiny part of a great whole we get a hint of from our triune mind which is attracted to experience this higher whole.

I was standing at a magazine rack in a Borders bookstore when I first saw this photograph on the front of the National Geographic. Opening the magazine and eagerly reading the explanation of the photograph, I was struck with wonder: a nearly microscopic point in an apparently empty patch of the night sky was here shown to be a window onto hundreds, thousands of stars, many certainly greater than our own sun, and, like our sun, pouring out unimaginable streams of life-creating energy onto who knows what planetary worlds and who knows what living beings that may have arisen upon these worlds. I remember standing there for a moment with my eyes closed, sensing the mingling of impersonal joy and yearning that everyone sometimes experiences looking up at a night sky strewn with millions of shining worlds.

I put the magazine back and started to walk away, but after two or three steps I stopped short. What had I actually seen? Something was not quite right. I turned around and went back to the magazine rack. My knees nearly gave way when I looked at the picture again. Could it really be? I opened the magazine again and this time very attentively read the explanation of the photograph: these were not stars at all, they were galaxies! Hundreds, thousands of galaxies never before known or seen inhabited that infinitesimal speck of “empty” sky, each galaxy itself containing billions of suns. I suddenly became very quiet inside.

I would like to think of the present book as an extended commentary on this image and the inner experience such images and discoveries can evoke. Every day in almost all its branches the revelations of modern science offer evidence that the universe, reality itself, is alive—alive beyond all imagining. All those who love science must know this truth in their bones, whatever may be the view officially sanctioned in the corridors of our universities and institutions of research. In any case, this is and always has been the view offered by the great spiritual traditions of the world, East and West, in all cultures and at all times previous to our own…………………………….

Greta,You are good at ad hom attacks and missing the point but at least your absurdity is consistent.

The Holy Trinity is one. The tripartite soul described by Plato is another. The triune brain theory is another and the triune mind is also another. Yes they are all related but cannot be considered the same.

A dog has a triune brain but not a triune mind capable of conscious triune reason

I am humbled to be considered a talent with ad homs by the king of ad hominem attacks. I didn't think I was so skilled. I remain your student with still so much to learn about the ignoble art of character assassination from your well practiced repertoire.

Actually other apes and dolphins have quadrune brains. Dogs have triune brains. I suspect that, as usual, you didn't read my post or quote because you know better. Mind you, those species probably do possess simple, practical reasoning like a child.

The Holy Trinity is just mythology, like virgin births, resurrections and angels. Obviously you would agree that none of those absurdities are real other than in some oblique metaphorical sense, just as you know that the geocentric solar system was not true. Mythology is basically an early metaphoric attempt to do science and there is clearly no sense treating ancient guesswork as sacred lore.

Plato's model was another, more advanced, attempt at the science - appetite, spirit and reason - seemingly treating emotions largely generated by the limbic system as if they were "spirit". Maybe a tidy fit if the brain actually was triune.

The triune brain is yet another superseded attempt, disproved by an improved capacity to study brain structures, the hypothesis' biggest problem perhaps being the significant blurring and codependencies between different brain systems. It's thus a misleading oversimplification. As things stand, you appear to be mistaking the map for the territory, trying to shoehorn reality into fitting the hypothesis.

Still, I personally perceive the functionality of minds (sans the "triune" pseudoscience) as three-sided - the self, the environment and the interactions. Don't need to pretend to do science for that; it's a subjective impression.

Also, BTW, you seem to not realise that I have been a proponent of panvitalism for a long time and open to "weak panpsychism" (if inclusive of proto-consciousness). You'll be delighted to know that I have copped much bollocking from people on forums for entertaining such views but I don't claim that scientists are misguided because a few forumites are closed minded about the possibilities of the unknown.

I have been suggesting for a long time that our piecemeal conception of space is probably how things would look to an atom - many objects whizzing around a huge distance away in chaotic ways.

The Holy Trinity is just mythology, like virgin births, resurrections and angels. Obviously you would agree that none of those absurdities are real other than in some oblique metaphorical sense, just as you know that the geocentric solar system was not true. Mythology is basically an early metaphoric attempt to do science and there is clearly no sense treating ancient guesswork as sacred lore.

Just mythology? Of course the dualistic mind limited to one level of reality cannot comprehend the logic of what we call a miracle. Yet for a person who has had the mind opening experience of levels of reality made possible by the triune mind, then the passage of forces from one level into another producing what we call a miracle is logical.

The Holy Trinity is just mythology, like virgin births, resurrections and angels. Obviously you would agree that none of those absurdities are real other than in some oblique metaphorical sense, just as you know that the geocentric solar system was not true. Mythology is basically an early metaphoric attempt to do science and there is clearly no sense treating ancient guesswork as sacred lore.

Just mythology? Of course the dualistic mind limited to one level of reality cannot comprehend the logic of what we call a miracle. Yet for a person who has had the mind opening experience of levels of reality made possible by the triune mind, then the passage of forces from one level into another producing what we call a miracle is logical.

Trouble is, you have just been shown to be wrong - that the triune brain was a misconception - and you have blithely ignored it. You won't address the fact that the "triune brain" was a mistaken conception.

If one accesses this version of a "triune mind" does this mean we will become more like Nick? Would this be an improvement?

It appears that "a person who has had the mind opening experience of levels of reality made possible by the triune mind" would be imbued with the following qualities:

for a person who has had the mind opening experience of levels of reality made possible by the triune mind

Do you think that's the only kind of mind opening experience -- AND the only reality -- that is possible?

"When a contradiction is impossible to resolve except by a lie, then we know that it is really a door." - Simone Weil

experiencing a contradiction can be mind blowing. It makes us uncomfortable so the natural tendency is to resolve it by a lie. This is the norm. Yet if a person can remain open to the contradiction it invites the third dimension of thought to resolve it from a higher perspective.

Duality transcending into triunity. What can be more offensive and insulting to anyone egoistically caught up in their dualistic mind? It is simply intolerable.

“One must not think slightingly of the paradoxical…for the paradox is the source of the thinker’s passion, and the thinker without a paradox is like a lover without feeling: a paltry mediocrity.” ― Soren Kierkegaard

The classic philosopher relishes the paradox since it arouses the triune mind while the modern dualistic philosopher rejects it with a passion since it lacks scientific proofs.

For the benefit of lurkers open to the transition from dualistic thought into triune reason necessary in the quest for wisdom I’d like to put Simone Weil’s observation together with Einstein’s.

1930
"Many people think that the progress of the human race is based on experiences of an empirical, critical nature, but I say that true knowledge is to be had only through a philosophy of deduction. For it is intuition that improves the world, not just following the trodden path of thought. Intuition makes us look at unrelated facts and then think about them until they can all be brought under one law. To look for related facts means holding onto what one has instead of searching for new facts. Intuition is the father of new knowledge, while empiricism is nothing but an accumulation of old knowledge. Intuition, not intellect, is the ‘open sesame’ of yourself." -- Albert Einstein, in Einstein and the Poet – In Search of the Cosmic Man by William Hermanns (Branden Press, 1983, p. 16.), conversation March 4, 1930

"When a contradiction is impossible to resolve except by a lie, then we know that it is really a door." - Simone Weil

The dualistic mind mechanically argues unrelated facts while the active triune mind consciously unites them under a higher conscious perspective.

If and when you experience this it will open new doors for you and provide new questions as to what human intelligence actually is.

Duality transcending into triunity. What can be more offensive and insulting to anyone egoistically caught up in their dualistic mind? It is simply intolerable.

Where do you come up with this stuff? Do you imagine people thrashing around in horror, their faces contorted over the mere suggestion of giving up thoughts of duality? People are not as limited as you project them to be.

“One must not think slightingly of the paradoxical…for the paradox is the source of the thinker’s passion, and the thinker without a paradox is like a lover without feeling: a paltry mediocrity.” ― Soren Kierkegaard

Duality transcending into triunity. What can be more offensive and insulting to anyone egoistically caught up in their dualistic mind? It is simply intolerable.

Where do you come up with this stuff? Do you imagine people thrashing around in horror, their faces contorted over the mere suggestion of giving up thoughts of duality? People are not as limited as you project them to be.

“One must not think slightingly of the paradoxical…for the paradox is the source of the thinker’s passion, and the thinker without a paradox is like a lover without feeling: a paltry mediocrity.” ― Soren Kierkegaard

What would it take for you to admit the possibility that Einstein and Simone have experienced a conscious perspective you are yet to experience?

Oh, I can admit that, no problem. I just think YOUR interpretation and imagination have gone way overboard. You are free to do that, of course -- but if you present it here as some sort of higher consciousness, well, it seems appropriate and valuable for me to point out the ways it doesn't match up and it looks nuts. I can only hope that you appreciate (someday if not now) my exuberance in sharing such feedback with you.

What would it take for you to admit the possibility that Einstein and Simone have experienced a conscious perspective you are yet to experience?

Oh, I can admit that, no problem. I just think YOUR interpretation and imagination have gone way overboard. You are free to do that, of course -- but if you present it here as some sort of higher consciousness, well, it seems appropriate and valuable for me to point out the ways it doesn't match up and it looks nuts. I can only hope that you appreciate (someday if not now) my exuberance in sharing such feedback with you.

What would it take for you to admit the possibility that Einstein and Simone have experienced a conscious perspective you are yet to experience?

Oh, I can admit that, no problem. I just think YOUR interpretation and imagination have gone way overboard. You are free to do that, of course -- but if you present it here as some sort of higher consciousness, well, it seems appropriate and valuable for me to point out the ways it doesn't match up and it looks nuts. I can only hope that you appreciate (someday if not now) my exuberance in sharing such feedback with you.

How does my interpretation differ from theirs?

This is where you continually make a critical error -- by thinking that your LOADED interpretation accurately represents another's. By claiming to know what other people are thinking and feeling -- while you are interjecting so much of your own stuff, that it turns it into something quite different. This is what religion is: interpretations of interpretations infused with all sorts of agendas, and self-serving justifications/accusations/condemnations. It's fascinating if you can step back and honestly look at it, Nick. But you're so close and so invested and so convinced and so dependent, it appears that you are absolutely blind to how much distortion your own LOADED interpretation adds.

Oh, I can admit that, no problem. I just think YOUR interpretation and imagination have gone way overboard. You are free to do that, of course -- but if you present it here as some sort of higher consciousness, well, it seems appropriate and valuable for me to point out the ways it doesn't match up and it looks nuts. I can only hope that you appreciate (someday if not now) my exuberance in sharing such feedback with you.

How does my interpretation differ from theirs?

This is where you continually make a critical error -- by thinking that your LOADED interpretation accurately represents another's. By claiming to know what other people are thinking and feeling -- while you are interjecting so much of your own stuff, that it turns it into something quite different. This is what religion is: interpretations of interpretations infused with all sorts of agendas, and self-serving justifications/accusations/condemnations. It's fascinating if you can step back and honestly look at it, Nick. But you're so close and so invested and so convinced and so dependent, it appears that you are absolutely blind to how much distortion your own LOADED interpretation adds.

But you still have not said where anything I have written opposes what either Plato, Einstein, Simone Weil, or Jacob Needleman have written. What is this loaded interpretation you refer too?